


I Am "Jack"

by THA_THUMPP



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Bargaining, Bottom!Venom Snake, Captivity, Dom/sub, Inspired by Mission 51: Kingdom of the Flies, M/M, References to Lord of the Flies, Spoilers for MGSV TPP, Top!Eli
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 12:46:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5206400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/THA_THUMPP/pseuds/THA_THUMPP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He who holds the conch, calls the shots, huh?" Venom Snake scoffs at the symbol of manhood dangling from Eli's waist; a mixture of admiration and foolishness to his aged eyes yet everything to the youth's young ones. All he has to do is get hold of it then, he figures. Too bad Eli and his band of boys have stripped him of his bionic arm and have strung him up good and tight like a piñata between Sahelanthropus' legs - the Metal Gear now suffering at the hands of weathering. As a solider of war, however, Venom Snake has been in worse situations, far worse.</p><p>Meanwhile, back at Mother Base, Ocelot and Miller receive a mysterious package; a message from Eli demanding pardon and safe passage from his island in the Arabian Sea. That's the trade on the table, and if the terms aren't met the two will be getting "Snake's head" in the mail next, and not the reptilian kind, either. But is Eli a man of his word? Well, he isn't a 'man' yet, per se, so...</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am "Jack"

**Author's Note:**

> Please Note: Spoilers for MGSV TPP, and nods toward the incomplete Mission 51: Kingdom of the Flies.
> 
> This idea suddenly hit us like a ROCKET... PUUUUUUNCH after Mission 11, which was when we began wondering what would've happened if Quiet hadn't been there to stop the LRM from hitting Pequod's chopper. As a heads up, we're altering the chronological timeline of TPP a little bit - Eli is not in possession or infected by the English strain of the vocal chord parasite and he has already taken Sahelanthropus from Mother Base. Enjoy the cray cray.

The saltwater is bitter. It stings his eye untouched by the eye-patch, his lips already tickled by facial hair, his mouth tired from panting, and his wounds and scars both deep and shallow. Venom Snake spits out sand and water as he lugs his saturated body out from the sea and onto the shoal, sensitive to the relentless waves tugging at his boots like hands from hell unwilling to let go. He pulls with his elbows, drags his belly as if a snake before collapsing. Exhausted, he rolls onto his back and simply lies. The cloudless sky and cruel sun above blanches his vision; in a cringe he shields his face with a hand, blocking out what rays he can.

On his way back to Mother Base from the Aabe Shifap Ruins, his chopper had been attacked, shot out of the sky by an LRM—a Long-Range Missile—from a tailing AV-8B Harrier II. He was thrown off-balance on impact, cast out through the opened clamshell door behind him like man after sinning. His back had hit the Arabian Sea first, the collision knocking the wind straight from his lungs like a knee to the solar plexus.

It felt like he had struck ice, the water freezing in its embrace, and the temperature grew even colder in graduation the further he sank. He had sensed the change mostly around the bare skin of his cheeks and his neck. Then the water started seeping to the rest of his body, in through the collar of his Sneaking Suit. The effect was numbing, and for a moment he was lost which way was up, the waves and darkness disorientating his sense of direction. Over and under he fought against the rip current, struggled for breath, and somehow managed to surface. In a gasp he broke the water, flinging his head back, mouth open. The only sound clear to him was the deafening roar of Pequod’s engine and the sporadic beeping of the cockpit. It was growing louder, coming closer.

On instinct, Venom had ducked. The spiraling helicopter flew right overhead and smacked an area of water some odd feet behind him like it was terrain and not ocean. The rotor blades bounced and gyrated the body of the aircraft in sloppy circles; bubbles clouded the water around, steam the sky, as its cockpit filled with water and the whole framework started to go under. Like a ship it sank, sucked beneath waves of anonymity; the very same that derived stories about pirates and sunken treasure.

There was no sign of Pequod among the wreckage, presumed DOI: dead on impact.

The AV-8B Harrier II that had caused the crash had circled around and above for another attack, whizzing through the sky and overhead like a bloodhound on wings. More AIM-13—heat-seeking missiles—were launched from the jet, and Venom had to dive to avoid detection, also to drop his heat signature. He hid beneath the swell of the waves, and the missiles bypassed him. They went straight for what was left of Pequod’s helicopter and exploded on contact. Venom had felt the blast underwater, yet kept swimming. Two-minutes later he emerged. When he did there was no sign of the Harrier jet patrolling the area, only remnants of Pequod’s chopper floating and drifting in the waves like jetsam.

Venom himself had drifted with the tide, which had eventually carried him here, where he was now: washed ashore on some beach with sand caked to his stomach, face, and back.

Venom sighs, somehow finding it within his strength to rise. His limbs feel weighted, sleepy, as does his head. The squelchy sand beneath his soles doesn’t make it easy to get his bearings, but he manages after a few staggers, and the first thing he does is poke at the comms in his ear.

“Kaz,” he says like he expects an answer. Though there is nothing, no reply. “Ocelot,” he tries again. Still nothing, just heavy static. It seems that the seawater has damaged the piece of equipment, rendering it useless. “Great.”

Venom yanks the earpiece out of his ear, tucks it away for later use if need be, and turns around to reconnaissance the area. He doesn’t have his INT-Scope to see long-range, but from what he can gather from the scenery around him he’s standing on an island. The size of the landmass isn’t massive, but it looks like it would take at least a day’s hike from one end to the other.

“Just like old times,” he humphs and starts walking; first leaving the shoreline, then passing rocky crags, and finally entering the tropical forest of the island from the North-West.

The jungles of Tselinoyarsk are the earliest faux memories to come to mind as he finds a beaten path and sticks to its direction, careful not to follow its allocated footpath too closely. Back then, when hungry, ‘he’ would have eaten anything he could get his hands on; bigeye trevally; otton frogs. But now, coming across the remains of a boar’s severed head covered in an amass of black, bulbous flies and a week-long stench of death trapped beneath the dense canopy of jungle overhead, not so much for this Big Boss. The heat of the meridian sun is hot, but it’s not _that_ hot; it’s not enough to roast the rotting meat and make it appetizing. So Venom passes it by for the time being, keeps walking past thriving flora and fungi, mushrooms the size of hands, stacked like stepladders on trunks.

Maybe he’ll come back later, see if there are any vultures up there, he thinks and then stops when feeling something touch his right ankle. Though he doesn’t see what.

In the middle of looking down, there’s a sudden and distracting sibilant sound—a _zip_. It travels in a line, around a tree where a burning smell starts to circulate, and in less than a second his feet are being ripped right from under him. Upside-down he is towed against gravity and its great influence, where he soon dangles like a duiker by the leg; his right ankle snared in a man-made trap, his weight cruel on its joint. He seethes in a moment of strain and oversight at how he’s wound, then grunts and sways to and fro, trying to see if he can manage himself loose with sheer force alone. Though it’s no use. The rope is too taut, constricting like a serpent the longer he grapples it and his mass.

Realizing this, he calms and sucks in. Then bends at the waist and climbs his hands up his leg, all the way to his foot to see if he can untie himself. Except the knot is unworkable, tight enough to stop circulation between veins, and he fails. His body goes limp, falling back down only to try again with the same luck. He’s trapped, at the mercy of a knot and dwindling strength, burning abs and pints of blood rushing to his head. He can’t stand much more, otherwise he’ll faint. That would be bad. And in a search his bionic fingers clumsily fumble around his belt, where quick-thinking has him aware of his knife, which he procures in a yank and makes a final attempt to free himself.

One clean cut should do the trick. However, a thrown spear has the knife flying out of his grasp, both his blade and the spearhead embedding in the soft earth an arm’s length away. Venom looks down at his bionic hand, flexes it only to notice that the spear has taken off two of the fingers; the pointer and the middle. His eye cringes for his loss, then searches for the thrower, who attacked from behind. The direction from which the spear was thrown was the hint, and he twists at the waist to gaze upon a pair of combat boots and green-black camouflage shorts. A flash of recognition is quick to follow, and as Venom broods over it he lets his gaze pan higher to the huge conch shell tied to the wearer’s belt, the scrawny, bare chest and a necklace of teeth above that, and murderous, blue eyes, and slicked blond hair over all.

“Well, well, well,” Eli singsongs, turning his back to Venom and opening his arms to all his boys coming out of the bushes like aborigine hunters. There is no sign of the Floating Boy. “I was certain we’d snared ourselves another boar, but this is even better!”

Most kids are carrying spears in their hands, others have mud on their faces in the illusion of war paint. Venom recognizes one of the Mbele boys he rescued at Kungenga Mine, the one with the yellow earflap beanie. The child solider recognizes him as well—the kid’s dropped shoulders tells Venom this.

“Look what we caught – a snake!” Eli scoops up Venom’s knife from where it had been deflected and tosses it back and forth between each hand. He looks like a cat toying with its prey, minus the unpredictability. His next move is perceivable in his young muscles, his arms too tense and his feet too prepared for a strike.

Venom ruffles his shoulders in a relentless struggle, baiting Eli to make a move, which the youth does. In a quick turn, Eli is refacing him and lunging with the knife and an angry cry. His stance looks like some petty attempt at fencing, making it easy for Venom to evade, who uses his free leg to kick Eli to the ground. The youth falls away from him, onto bare knees, then a surprised face with a hearty ‘oof’ after that. This retaliation prompts Eli’s boys, all but the one from the Kungenga Mine, to rush forward in an attack.

 _Never Be The Game Over._ The words stitched on Eli’s back couldn’t be any clearer.

Quickly, Venom swings his body right then left. With the help of his building momentum, he manages to salvage the spear that had lopped off his two bionic fingers earlier and uses the blunt end of the stick to knock back the incoming children. He trips a few up by the legs, whacks a couple over the side of their heads; all deflects ending in knockouts. And with an opening now presented to him, Venom bends at the waist one final time and flips the spearhead around, expecting to use the sharp blade to cut himself free of the rope ensnaring him once and for all. What he doesn’t expect is the child solider he rescued at the Kungenga Mine, the one wearing the yellow earflap beanie, to choose this moment of all to attack him. The kid looks about as shocked as Venom himself when their gazes lock, almost like the kid didn’t think he had it in him.

Though apparently, he did, and Venom drops his spear.

The child soldier’s own spear is now lodged deep within Venom’s flesh, right below his ribcage, on an angle. Pushed in any further and it will pierce his heart. Venom knows this and growls, touching his chin to his chest, fingertips barely ghosting the point of penetration and the weapon itself. He dares not move now.

For a second Eli looks aghast—there, on the ground, blood running down his chin—but then he starts to laugh.

Venom scrunches his face in a constipated silence as he watches the youth rise to his feet. Eli’s posture is sloppy, his movements careless with premature triumph, and the snickering is still ongoing as he wipes away any blood that has trickled out from the side of his mouth with a wrist, the dirt on his chest, too—including Venom’s bootprint.

“I told you it wasn’t over,” Eli sneers, high and mighty like a victor. “Not yet, _father_ ,” he adds bitterly, before punching Venom square in the shrapnel, knocking the man out cold.

**Author's Note:**

> Our first fic in this fandom - yaaay! Please, be gentle. (Also, look at that word count. That's a good year XD)


End file.
